Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 10:37 AM
Mads Pedersen managed to beat Mathieu van der Poel in Ghent-Wevelgem, but it remains to be seen how the Dane will perform a week later in the Tour of Flanders. He had a hard crash in Dwars door Vlaanderen. Not ideal, Pedersen himself knows, but he still hopes for a good match.
“We try to race like we have done before,” said Pedersen, who impressed with his Lidl-Trek teammates in the previous cobbled classics, at Sporza. However, things went terribly wrong for the American team in Dwars door Vlaanderen. Pedersen crashed, just like his teammates Jasper Stuyven and Alex Kirsch, who are therefore missing from the Tour of Flanders. “We miss Jasper and Alex, but we have a very strong team. We believe we can continue racing as we have been doing.”
“We think that the race around the Molenberg can be opened,” said Pedersen. “That is not a problem for us. The faster it becomes man-to-man, the better for us. Have my chances changed following my fall in Dwars door Vlaanderen? Naturally. It is never ideal to fall for Flanders three days, but all things considered, I still believe that I am better than other years. We’ll see how it goes. I hope for the best.”
